


whitecaps

by mistycodec



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesia, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Rampant Domesticity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6067807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistycodec/pseuds/mistycodec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan falls unconscious due to a severe fever on the Stan O' War. When the fever breaks and he reawakens, a sudden and terrifying hole in his memories returns.<br/>Set post-finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	whitecaps

It is a warm afternoon on the Stan O’ War and Stan leans lazily against the outer wall of the cabin, nursing a mug of coffee that has long since lost its potency. After a long hard week of vicious storms that threatened to overturn their tiny boat, the clear skies and gentle breeze were a much needed reprieve. Stan takes another long sip from his mug and watches Ford pace around the deck, mumbling to himself as he scribbles notes within the margins of a map. Stan chuckles at the familiar sight. Ford worries himself to the bone at the end of each week with course corrections, constantly re-calculating distances they’ve crossed on worn scraps of paper until every pencil he has is worn down to a nub. And once Ford has spread himself too thin Stan will scoop Ford into his arms and soothe his worries with gentle kisses, reassuring him that the sea will take them where they need to go all in good time.

Stan does this now, setting his mug down on the deck before closing the short distance between himself and his brother. “What have I told ya about worrying over the map?” he asked, pulling Ford close. Ford splutters and drops both the map and the pencil, which rolls away out of sight. “Stop frettin’ so much. If we were low on supplies, I’d be the first to haul us back to shore. But until then,” Stan pauses to press a quick kiss to Ford’s cheek, “you need to relax a little.”

Ford twists in Stan’s arms until he meets Stan’s gentle gaze. “Aren’t you at least a little concerned about where we are?”

“Nope.” Stan pops the _p_ and grins. “Doesn’t matter what your nerd numbers say. I’m with you and that’s all that matters to me.”

Stan knows it is cheesy and Ford groans in response, although neither can hide their smiles. Stan kisses Ford’s cheek again and Ford shifts in Stan’s arms, still unsure.

“I need to fish, Stanley.”

It is a half-baked excuse and they both know it. Ford is enjoying the moment just as much as Stan is, and when Stan leans forward and their lips gently brush together, Ford happily meets his brother fully.

They share a brief kiss under the warm autumn sun. Ford’s mouth slants over his own and his twin’s stubble scrapes lightly against his skin. Stan hums in response and resists the urge to deepen the kiss, to pull Ford away from the deck and his map coordinates to the cool underbelly of the ship, where in the sheets of their shared bed time seems to careen to a halt.

“If y’keep kissing me like that, all the fish are going to get away.”

Ford smiles and places one last peck on Stan’s lips before pulling away and returning his attention to the map. The wind had blown it towards the worn metal railing where it flapped in the breeze. The pencil was nowhere to be found. Ford sighs and collects the map, returning it to its rightful place in the cabin before padding back outside and to the fishing pole resting against the railing.

“A shame I’m too good of a brother to let you go hungry tonight.”

“Mmm, and you’d be an even better boyfriend if you catch me the biggest damn fish in the ocean.” Stan wraps his arms loosely around Ford’s middle and rests his chin against tousled, greying hair. When Ford does not respond but instead leans into his brother’s touch, Stan knows he has won.

There’s something about the term boyfriend that makes Stan simultaneously embarrassed and elated. Perhaps it is because they have moved past the awkward stage of _we’re too old for such a juvenile label_ to _we’re too old to kid ourselves anymore_. Ford was very old-school about the whole thing and preferred to call Stan his partner first, brother second. But for Stan, boyfriend seemed to stick and he made a point of trotting out the honorific every now and then just to ruffle Ford’s feathers. And his brother was oh so easily ruffled.

An unexpected wave of nausea pulses through Stan and he stumbles, clutching his stomach before slowly righting himself. He swallows thickly, waiting several moments until his body decides to calm down. The feeling subsides but still lingers, and Stan grimaces. _Great. This again._

“Something wrong?”

Stan gives Ford a curt shake of his head. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Probably need to use the head or somethin’.”

The eye roll Ford throws his way makes Stan chuckle. “Make sure you announce it to the world on your way down.”

Stan grins and cups his hands to form a makeshift megaphone, projecting his voice for the entire open ocean to hear. “ _MY BROTHER NEEDS TO LEARN HOW TO NOT UNDERCOOK THE DAMN HADDOCK!_ ” Ford playfully punches his arm and Stan bursts into a fit of giggles, returning the gesture.

“I cook the fish just fine, thank-you-very much,” Ford bristles. “You’ve just got a sensitive stomach.”

“Hah! Says Mister Stanford ‘I-Have-To-Buy-Organic-Milk-and-Only-The-Freshest-Of-Greens’ Pines. You’re a regular four-star connoisseur.”

The French accent Stan attempts to tack on at the end makes Ford cringe but his distaste is betrayed by a light smile that plays upon his lips. “Didn’t know you had any dollar words in your vocabulary.”

“I’m not all twenty-five cent words an—”

The sentence dies in Stan’s throat as the world suddenly shifts beneath his feet. The cresting whitecaps on the ocean blur and Ford seemed very far away, voice lost in a high unending wail that threatened to split his skull in two. Stan clutches at his head with sweaty palms as he sways on his feet, nausea overtaking him with something that felt a helluva lot worse. He can faintly hear Ford calling out to him from possibly miles away and Stan’s eyes squeeze shut as he tries—and fails—to will his legs into standing.

He collapses before he can make it to the head.

* * *

 

After seven scary hours, Stan’s fever breaks. Ford touches a shaking hand to his brother’s forehead and almost cries with relief when it comes away cool. Ford moves away to the washbasin to wring out the warmed cloth and to wet it again, a repeated task that had left his hands chafed red and pruning. Sitting down again on the edge of the bed, Ford lays the cloth against Stan’s head and gently squeezes Stan’s hand before releasing it.

Stan groans and his eyes crack open. “The hell am I?” he quavers, attempting to sit up and failing miserably. He falls back against the bed with a thump. His entire body is a throbbing bruise and his joints pop and click with the smallest exertion. Even breathing sent a sharp pain rocketing through his chest as if someone placed a heavy weight directly onto his deflating lungs. After a few gasping, tentative breaths Stan came to the shaky conclusion that he was either dying or really fucking sick. He hoped it was the latter.

“Your fever’s breaking.” Stan turns his head in the direction of the voice. A man is sitting beside him in bed, and although he spoke with conviction and calm the man’s eyes are crinkled in worry. The man then takes Stan’s hand in his own and presses two fingers to Stan’s clammy wrist, feeling for a pulse. Stan’s gaze flickers down to follow the man’s actions, watching closely as the man counts under his breath before smiling, apparently sated. His fingers thread in between Stan’s and hold on tight, and for a brief moment Stan feels inexplicably calmed by the action, comforted by all _onetwothreefourfive—_ six?

Six fingers. Motherfucking shit.

Stan recoils from the man and scuttles back into the far corner of the alcove despite loud protests from his body. His mind was still fogged over from, well, whatever sickness he was fighting, but he knew one thing and that was the six-fingered man freaked him out. It was too many fingers for one hand, like some kind of messed-up Bond villain, and in the midst of Stan’s panic he managed to blurt out “W-Who the hell are _you_?!”

The man’s forehead creases into worry as he reaches for Stan again with the same outstretched hand. “It’s Ford,” he says faintly at first, the repeats himself more firmly. “Please, tell me you can remember that much.” He moves closer and Stan slaps his hand away.

“Look, mister, I don’t know where the hell I am or how I got here, and I certainly don’t know any ‘Ford.’ So why don’t you do me a favor and don’t fucking touch me.”

The man looks stricken, panicked even, and for a single heartbeat Stan worries he’s said something horribly wrong. The moment fades as quickly as it came.

“Stanley, I want you to focus. Look at me.” Stan wants to look anywhere but. “Say it with me: ‘My name is Stanley Pines.’”

“I’m not saying anything.” Stan glances around the room he is in, frantically searching for an exit but finding none. His vision is still stretched and blurred and the man’s face grows muddied before Stan blinks it away.

“You _will_ say it.” The man’s voice shakes Stan to his core and pins him to the bed. He is suddenly afraid to act otherwise.

“M-my name…is Stanley Pines.” The words feel unfamiliar in his own mouth. He does not believe what he is being asked, _forced_ to say, and Stan spends a few desperate moments within his own mind before he realizes he cannot remember his own name

The man stares at him with dark, unblinking eyes. “Again.”

“My name is Stanley Pines.”

Something stirs deep within Stan, a small spark of memory before the wind of a dark, unknowing void snuffs it out.

“Again,” the man intones.

Stan repeats himself, suddenly more afraid of his own mind than the man before him. He recites phrases over and over again until the darkness of the room bleeds into morning, and when the man is finished Stan’s fever is gone. He stares down at his lap before his gaze flickers over to the man’s—Ford’s— _Sixer’s_ wonderful, broad-palmed hands, and that is when Stan comes hurtling out of the fog. He finds himself falling, down and down out of the dark and twisting mists and into Ford’s arms, and his eyes cloud not with blurriness but with the thick saltiness of tears.

* * *

“I called you a freak, Sixer.”

“It’s understandable. I would have too, in your situation.”

The twins sit side by side on the deck, bare legs dangling over the sun-bleached edge. Stan’s face is buried deep in his hands, and he cannot bear to look his brother in the eye.

“I couldn’t stand for you to even touch me.”

Stan’s voice shakes with pain but he does not allow himself to cry. Not now, not again.

“Don’t punish yourself for this. It’s lingering effects from the memory gun and nothing more.”

He wishes he could be calm and logical about this. Stan peeks out from the cracks between his fingers and steals a glance at Ford. The man beside him, his brother, _lover_ , stares right back with concern. Stan’s heart thuds and aches, and he hides his face once more.

“I’m sorry,” he manages finally.

“I know,” Ford replies. He always knows.

Ford pulls Stan into a wordless embrace, holding his twin tight, for he fears that if he lets go Stan will shatter once more into tiny slivers of glass and that Ford will be left to pick up the pieces. Ford fears that he will slice his hands open upon Stan’s scattered memories and that putting them back into place will irrevocably damage them both. And finally, Ford thinks with a moment of disturbing clarity, he fears that some of the pieces have already rolled off the smooth deck of the Stan O’ War and have been lost to the endless breaking waves.


End file.
